MAGGIE'S FARM

The Casino or Foodtown or inbetween?

PASSENGERS ONLY

You can only go beyond this point if you are a passenger. Take your shoes off, remove your belt, jacket, keys and wallet in the plastic tray, laptop out of the bag. Raise your arms, please.

If your name is Muhammad, Ali or Khan, more questions at the border or just boarding (even without that t-shirt embossed with foreign calligraphy).

When did you last visit Pakistan? Or should I say Pawkeestawn?
10 years ago for my brother's wedding.
Did he kidnap the bride? Or was it a shotgun wedding?
Ha ha ha. No they're back in England.
Do you have a Pakistani passport?
No, I only have this British passport.
Have you ever had a Pakistani passport?
No I travelled once as a child on my mother's Pakistani passport.
Are your parents Pakistanis?
They have British passports. All my family is British. They don't have Pakistani passports anymore. Not since 1973. We were naturalized as UK citizens.
Do you consider yourself Pakistani?
I have a British passport.
Do you consider yourself Pakistani, Yes or No?
Well...
Just answer the question. Do you consider yourself Pakistani?
No.
I might have to put you on a special registration list which means that the officers over there will ask you more questions. Hmm... But since you've been to the States several times I'll let you go this time.
Thank you very much, Sir.

'Consider yourself one of the family' sang Fagin. This compilation of songs, mainly from the network of audioblogs that I've grown to love deeply and widely, is the kind of mix I'd want to listen to soothe me on the plane or even the train when I know the above can happen at the border. No plans to go far for some months so this is my vicarious travel listening for the easiest ride possible. Well, there are a few unforeseen surprises. Can't always be smooth sailing. You hit 'mild turbulence' once or twice.

PASSENGERS ONLY 09.06

DUKE ELLINGTON--Solitude
MOACIR SANTOS--Coisa Número 9
MARTIN DENNY--Martinique
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG--AF607105
THE SANDPIPERS--Inch Worm
JOANNA NEWSOM--Sawdust & Diamonds
SUSANA BACA--The Anchor Song
ALFRED AHOLO APAKA--Beyond The Reef
THE GLENRAYS--Egyptian Nightmare
ELVIS PRESLEY--Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce
VAN DYKE PARKS--Blue Snake & Zebras
DENNIS ROLLINS--Fast Car
BOOKER T. & The MG's--Sarasota Sunset
THE STAPLE SINGERS--Slow Train
YUSUF LATEEF--Nocturne
SERGIO MENDES/BRAZIL '66--Chove Chuva
LES INTRIGANTES--Hello Goodbye
ROXY MUSIC--India (Tropical Computer Edit)
L'ALTRA, PHIL RANELIN & SLICKER--Hefty Naked Ninja (Eliot Lipp Remix)
DAEDELUS--Viva Vida

TOWERS OF SONG

Despite the spin and hype, I wanted to make a playlist that, without irony, was a minor but heartfelt memorial to the victims and those who grieve for them. I was drawn to tunes that carry the United States' churchical traditions.

You'll never walk alone...

The outline of a figure emerges from the dust, the phantom image of Walter Benjamin standing at Ground Zero, surveying the rubble and ashes.

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the struggle against Fascism will thereby improve. Not the least reason that the latter has a chance is that its opponents, in the name of progress, greet it as a historical norm.


There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair, to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.

TOWERS OF SONG 11.09.06

BILL MONROE & HIS BLUEGRASS QUARTET
Wicked Path of Sin
ALFRED KARNES
Where We'll Never Grow Old
CHARLIE HADEN & HANK JONES
Hymn Medley: Abide With Me/Just As I Am Without One Plea/What A Friend We Have In Jesus/Amazing Grace
THE GOSPEL CLEFS
Open Our Eyes
ROSCOE LEE BROWNE, ROBERTA FLACK & RUBY DEE
Roses And Revolutions (extract)
NINA SIMONE
4 Women/Save Me (Live at Antibes 1969)
GEORGE JACKSON
Aretha Sing One For Me
BOHANNON
Save Their Souls
SAM TAYLOR
Heaven On Their Minds
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND (w/ IVAN NEVILLE)
God is Love
THE ROOTS
Don't Feel Right
ALBERT AYLER
New Ghosts
GOLDEN GATE JUBILEE QUARTET
Job
REVEREND LOUIS OVERSTREET
I'm A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord
SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Sweet Inspiration
ARETHA FRANKLIN
I Say A Little Prayer
ALICE COLTRANE
Wisdom Eye

911 IS A JOKE

So rapped Public Enemy more than five years ago.

'Don't Believe the Hype' might be more appropriate.

Simon Jenkins cuts through the propaganda:

Terrorism is 10% bang and 90% an echo effect composed of media hysteria, political overkill and kneejerk executive action, usually retribution against some wider group treated as collectively responsible. This response has become 24-hour, seven-day-a-week amplification by the new politico-media complex, especially shrill where the dead are white people. It is this that puts global terror into the bang. While we take ever more extravagant steps to ward off the bangs, we do the opposite with the terrorist aftershock. We turn up its volume. We seem to wallow in fear.

PSYCHEDELICATES (4 Syd & Arthur)

SHARON TATE--Speaks For The NRA
THE BEACH BOYS--'Til I Die (alternative mix)
KRZYSZTOF KOMEDA/MIA FARROW--Rosemary's Baby (Main Title)
CLAUDINE LONGET--Until It's Time For You To Go
HARPERS BIZARRE--Cotton Candy Sandman
LOVE--She Comes In Colors (Stereo)
SIXTO RODRIGUEZ--Sugar Man
VINCENT PRICE--Pickled Mushrooms
JUNIOR PARKER--Taxman
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE--Color Me True
PETER COOK--Bedazzled
PINK FLOYD--Lucifer Sam
OS MUTANTES--Bat Macumba
LOVE--Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale
JIMI HENDRIX--Like A Rolling Stone (Live Spoken Intro)
THE ARBORS--Hey Joe
THE FOUR SEASONS--Like A Rolling Stone
BILLY TAM--Happy Together
LOVE--Wonder People (Do I Wonder)
BOBBY DARIN--Darling Be Home Soon
RICHARD TWICE--If I Knew You Were The One
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE--Today
SYD BARRETT--Bob Dylan Blues
HARRY NILSSON--Many Rivers To Cross

ANIMAL TERRORISM

A reality check on the death of the Crocodile Hunter from Germaine Greer

BOMBAYROOTCAUSE

BIBIO--London Planes
PINCH--Qawwali
FUN^DA^MENTAL--Cookbook DIY
GOTAN PROJECT--El Capitalismo Foráneo (Antipop Consortium Remix)
CHEB I SABBAH--Toura Toura (The Medina Remix)
RACHID TAHA--El H'Mame
BRIAN ENO & DAVID BYRNE--Regiment
FAIRUZ--Ana La Ansake Palestine
UNKNOWN BAILE FUNK ARTIST--Rocky Theme
BIKRAM SINGH & GUNJAN--Kawan (Drum'n'Bass Remix)
CSS--Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above (Spank Rock remix)
QUANTIC--Bomb In A Trumpet Factory
CAPTAIN PLANET--The Don
PIGMEAT MARKHAM--Here Comes The Judge
DJ GREEN LANTERN FEAT. JUST BLAZE, M-1, SAIGON & IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE--Impeach The President
DJ HONDA FEAT. JERU THA DAMAJA--El Presidente (Dirty)
D-STYLES & DJ FLARE--Turntable Circumcision
DR OCTAGON--Al Green (Chapter 2, Verse 908 remix)
M.I.A.--Sunshowers (Surkin Remix)
KODE9 & DADDI GEE--Spit (vox)
THE HUMAN LEAGUE--Once Upon A Time In The West (Funeral March)

ATTA BOY

Underwhelmed by Martin Amis's fictionalization of Mohammad Atta's last days. I guess the white boys get a hard-on imagining the cool nihilism and depilation/ablution regimes of suicidal mass murderers. In cold blood. If only they'd shagged more, there'd be peace in the valley of death. Yep nice n easy reasons. 'T were only so simple. More 911 BS to follow I'm sure as we approach the day. I remember on September 11, 2002 I was shopping in Selfridges with Shuchi and Mama. We suddenly realized we were the only ones talking in the food court. Everyone was stumm due to two minutes of official silence for the dead in the USA. Two minutes of silence for Pinochet's victims? Two minutes for Srebernica? Two minutes for Sabra and Chatila? Let me pick up that designer sandwich and talk about it puh-leeze. Heard someone has published a graphic novel of the 9/11 Commission's Report. That should be better reading than Martin's literary jihad. AllahuAkbar Martin. I like how 'Amis's' sounds more like the London Jewish diction of Alec Guiness's Fagin than just plain old English Amis'. Martin remiss. You're no Truman Capote.